the floors were of hard-wood and
clean. As the greatest curse of the cotton lint was dust, atomizers
for spraying the air were invented by Captain Tom. These were
attached to the machinery and could be turned off or on as the
operators desired. It was most comfortable now to work in the mill,
and tired and hot employees, instead of lounging through their noon,
bathed in the cool spring water which came down from the mountain
side and flowed into the baths, not only in the mill, but through
every cottage owned by the mill. And as the bath is the greatest
civilizer known to man, a marked difference was soon noticed in every
inhabitant of Cottontown. They were cleanly, and cleanliness begets a
long list of other virtues, beginning with cleaner and better clothes
and ending with ambition and godliness.

But it was the old Bishop's policy for the wage-earners, which put
the ambition there--a system never heard of before in the ranks of
capital, and first tested and proved in his Model Cotton Mill.

"There are two things in the worl'," said the Bishop, "that is as
plain as God could write them without tellin' it Himself from the
clouds. The first is that the money of the worl' was intended for all
the worl' that reaches out a hand an' works for it.

"The other is that every man who works is entitled to a home.

"It was never intended for one man, or one corporation or one trust
or one king or one anything else, to own more than his share of the
money of the worl', no matter how they get it. Every man who piles up
mo' money than he needs--actually needs--in life, robs every other
man or woman or child in the worl' that pinches and slaves and
starves for it in vain. Every man who makes a big fortune leaves just
that many wrecked homes in his path."

In carrying out this idea the old bishop had the mill incorporated at
one hundred thousand dollars, which included all his fortune, except
enough to live on and educate his grandchildren; for he never changed
his home, and the only luxury he indulged in was a stable for Ben
Butler.

The stock was divided into shares of ten dollars each, which could be
acquired only by those who worked in the mill, to be held only during
life-time, and earned only in part payment for labor, given according
to proficiency and work done, and credited on wages. In this way
every employee of the mill became a stockholder--a partner in the
mill, receiving dividends on his stock in addition to his r